Tag Archives: cool people

I’ve come across some fascinating research showing that autism is more common in higher social classes and schizophrenia is more common in lower social classes. In my opinion, this is because the higher social classes tend to be more nerdy (K selected) and the lower social classes tend to be more cool (r selected). The higher classes are nerdy in that they are more educated, more monogamous, more scrawny, and less sexually active. By contrast, the lower classes are “cool” because they are more blue collar, more muscular, more likely to get arrested, more into sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

Nerds tend to be more focused, less social, more scientific, more rational, and more logical. These traits are all quite useful, but when a nerdy child is born with executive dysfunction, the result might be autism.

By contrast, cool people tend to be more distracted, more social, more spiritual, more emotional, and more intuitive. But when a cool child is born with executive dysfunction, the result might be schizophrenia.

As I’ve previously explained, autism and schizophrenia might be the same disorder, just applied to humans at opposite ends of the evolutionary spectrum.